How to Think More About Sex (The School of Life)

The first step in therapy for the incompetent ejaculator is for his wife to force ejaculation manually. It may take several days to accomplish this purpose. The important concept to project to both unit members is that there is no rush.

It is undoubtedly an evolution in civilization when such matters can be put into prose and discussed in an undramatic and unembarrassed way by two adults while their children are asleep downstairs.

Yet there is arguably also something peculiar, even perverse, in an attitude of mind that relentlessly pathologizes a failure to have regular sex. Might we not turn the issue on its head and suggest that far from being an indication that something is wrong, a gradual decline in the intensity and frequency of sex between a married couple is merely an inevitable fact of biological life and, as such, evidence of deep normality? To rebel against it is like protesting that we are not permanently happy. Given the rarity of good sex, is it really right that we should continue to regard frequency as the norm? It would of course be convenient if sex and marriage could peacefully coexist, but wishing does not make it so. Would there not therefore be a certain wisdom in redrawing our expectations, depathologizing and destigmatizing our so-called ‘failures’ and sometimes just turning over to the other side of the bed, ready to accept without rancour, with stoic calm, some of the necessary compromises of long-term love?